With both of our parents being teachers, Rebecca teaching at a Eastern University and myself working in Camden city schools for three years, Rebecca and I have a great deal of experience with education policy. I believe that education can be the silver bullet, the thing that can alleviate poverty and ignorance and lead to the American dream. When our client Shaun Harper asked if we’d help photograph inner city minority males in NYC for a study at the University of Pennsylvania, we jumped on the opportunity.

Set to be unveiled in September, the study documents the successes of black and Latino males in order to help administration and educators recognize the good signs in these minorities and not dwell on bad ones. We couldn’t be more proud to be involved in photographing this important study. Over two days, we traveled from Philly to NYC and documented graduate and doctorate students, showcasing portraits exuding confident, articulate young men.

One of the reasons that I chose to pursue a career in journalism was to relay new, relevant information and to help people make good decisions. Being a part of this UPenn study gave JPG a taste of that again.

From all of us at JPG, thank you, Shaun, for giving us the opportunity to work with UPenn. We’re eager to continue work with higher education, colleges and universities in the future to produce stunning visual imagery to elevate important analyses and conclusions of experts in the field.